Media Architecture Institute

A great example by Gramazio & Kohler how christmas lights could look in future; Here’s a short description by the architects themselves:

” ‘Distinctive, generous, unique’—these were some of the qualities expected of the Christmas illuminations in Zurich’s internationally renowned shopping street. ….We designed a continuous band of lights, 1.1 km long, using 275 tubes of light, which we called “The World’s Largest Timepiece”.

In terms of urban planning, the installation connects the railway station to the lake. Its simple, linear course turns the band of light into the visual backbone of the city, accentuating the appearance of the Bahnhofstrasse and its two slight yet distinct changes in direction. …

View at Paradeplatz; Photo by Roman Keller

Urban Alliance´s mission is to integrate modern communication technologies in the built environment in order to create interactive public spaces and objects. Urban Alliance combines expertise in design, content production, engineering and construction. This way UA is a one-stop-shop for tun-key mediatecture solutions. Urban Alliance works for developers, governments, advisers and architects on projects indoors and outdoors for purposes as city marketing, social safety and arts.

• MegaPhone is Phonecall-Controlled, Real-Time, Multi-Player Collaborative Gaming Platform for Big Screens in Public Spaces, but we already said that. What we mean is, it’s a game you control with a phone call.
• MegaPhone is NOT a downloadable application that runs on your phone, and it’s NOT a wireless network, like Wifi or Bluetooth.
• There are two ways to send input to the display: keypad and voice. The keypad can be used much like a video game controller, and the volume and pitch of the phone’s microphone can also become input in the game.
• MegaPhone updates the game state on a shared screen, and can send custom audio and text messages back to each user. MegaPhone uses this mobile channel back to the caller to close the loop on out of home media advertising.

GreenPix – Zero Energy Media Wall – is a groundbreaking project applying sustainable and digital mediatechnology to the curtain wall of Xicui entertainment complex in Beijing, near the site of the 2008 Olympics.Featuring the largest color LED display worldwide and the first photovoltaic system integrated into a glass curtain wall in China, the building performs as a self-sufficient organic system, harvesting solar energy by day and using it to illuminate the screen after dark, mirroring a day’s climatic cycle.The Media Wall will provide the city of Beijing with its first venue dedicated to digital media art, while offering the most radical example of sustainable technology applied to an entire building’s envelope to date. The building will open to the public in May 2008, with a specially commissioned program of video installations and live performances by artists from China, Europe and the US.The project was designed and implemented by Simone Giostra & Partners, a New York-based office with a solid reputation for its innovative curtain walls in Europe and the US, with lighting design and façade engineering by Arup in London and Beijing. Content manager Luisa Gui will coordinate the opening program with software development by New York-based media artist Jeremy Rotsztain.

On October 6, Pleinmuseum visited Paris, as part of the Nuit Blanche. In cooperation with the Institut Néerlandais, celebrating its fiftieth anniversary, and the city of Paris, the pavilion stroke down at Place de la Bastille. Pleinmuseum is a mobile exhibition pavilion that places itself at the hearts of public life, opens as a flower, takes on new appearances every day and travels on after a while. Every evening from sunset Pleinmuseum will present a variety of the 100% digital collection. In each location also new artists are invited to create a new contribution to Pleinmuseum.

Reprojected is currently on display on the “Seven Screens” in Munich, an installation consisting of seven double-sided state-of-the-art LED-steles, each one of them measuring six metres in height. It transfers and reworks the actual spatial situation of the piece’s site.

Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) is the fifth busiest airport in the world, accommodating more than 61 million travelers per year. In 2006 it undertook a major lighting renovation to both improve visual impact and reduce energy and maintenance concerns by taking advantage of intelligent LED illumination.

The pylons of LAX Gateway are visible to airline passengers at 3,000 feet. A series of dynamic light shows was designed for the new LED-based installation, including a patriotic sequence of red, white and blue to observe the anniversary of September 11, 2001. The distinctive, architectural structures were originally designed as part of a $112 million construction and landscaping program intended to make the airport more welcoming and convenient for passengers. They have since become an iconic component of the Los Angeles cityscape for residents and visitors alike.

via: www.colorkinetics.com

Aspire Tower is a national icon for Qatar, the tallest building in the country and is specifically associated with the National Centre of Sports Excellence in the Middle East. The building was to be completed within 15 months for the Asian Games of 2006, and thereafter a focus for events in the sports complex and national celebrations. The lighting had to be very flexible allowing the tower to convey moods and dynamics relating to specific events. Challenges: vast height of the building (300metres); requirements for visibility at considerable distance from the tower; integration with the mesh façade; climatic conditions; very tight timescale. KSLD’s early practical approach allowed the design to develop rapidly so orders could be placed.